Gawreluck seeking NDP nod in Morinville-St. Albert

Shawna Gawreluck takes part in the federal by-election candidates’ forum last fall in this Morinville News file photo.

by Morinville News Staff

Shawna Gawreluck has announced her intentions to run for the NDP nomination in the new Electoral Division of Morinville-St. Albert.

Gawreluck ran for the federal NDP in the by-election last fall to replace Rona Ambrose’s vacated MP seat. In that election, she placed third in the race with 7.7% of the vote.

The 43-year-old lab tech and entrepreneur is a long-time resident of Sturgeon County. by Morinville News Staff

Shawna Gawreluck has announced her intentions to run for the NDP nomination in the new Electoral Division of Morinville-St. Albert.

Gawreluck ran for the federal NDP in the by-election last fall to replace Rona Ambrose’s vacated MP seat. In that election, she placed third in the race with 7.7% of the vote.

The 43-year-old lab tech and entrepreneur is a long-time resident of Sturgeon County. Gawreluck has worked for more than a decade as a medical laboratory technologist in transfusion medicine and is the board chair of the Sturgeon County Economic Development Advisory Board. She and her husband run a business while raising their three children.

Gawreluck said she wants to run for the NDP in 2019 because she says she understands the hard work it takes to support Albertans.

“I want to join Rachel Notley and the NDP team because we are finally on a path that serves all Albertans,” Gawreluck said in a news release. “The NDP have invested in Albertans by building local schools in both Morinville and St. Albert, establishing the neonatal unit at the Sturgeon Community Hospital and freezing post-secondary tuition fees. We need to continue that momentum of investing in Albertans – we can’t afford to let Jason Kenney and the UCP let our communities down.”

The United Conservative Party currently has five candidates seeking the party nod in Morinville-St. Albert. They are Joe Gosselin, Trina Jones, Don Rigney, Amber Harris and Dale Nally.

– inherited $5 BILLION in debt from Prentice government.
– banned corporate and union donations.
– brought farm safety up to code long overdue and in line with every other employer in Alberta by passing Bill 6.
– increased corporate tax from 10% to 12%. Less corporate welfare and only applies to profits. Then lowered small business tax by 1% in 2017 so 10% LESS.
– reviewed royalties like everyone asked and basically left them alone.
– $6.2 billion for energy jobs through the carbon tax program. Another $3.4 billion for rebates. Farms are exempt and large emitters like oil sands are exempt and flight out of Alberta are exempt.
– progressive tax system vs flat tax. Still lowest taxes in Canada and lower than Klein era.
– $35 billion in infrastructure jobs over next 5 years underway. Creating jobs we asked for and need.
– left our healthcare intact and no $1000 yearly fees like the PCs wanted.
– reversed planned PC govt. funding cuts to education, healthcare and public services.
– added 2 big royalty incentives for drillers that take effect immediately.
– added beer tax and grant to protect Alberta small brewers. Later added local distilleries and wineries to the deal.
– progressively raising minimum wage to $15/hr lifting people out of poverty.
– tore up the federal leap manifesto.
– added Alberta jobs grant. Alberta pays 2/3rds of any employees training up to $10,000 per individual.
– suing private power companies who colluded and made a secret deal.
– fired the entire board of agriculture financial services after ridiculous spending was discovered.
– passed transgender rights bill.
– passed essential services legislation. Allows strikes and lockouts by public sector workers, while still requiring ‘essential’ public services to be available to the general public during such labour disruptions.
– passed the SHARP program to provide home equity loans to seniors to help repair and stay in their homes.
– added public servants to the sunshine list for earners over $125,000.
– amended school bargaining by adding an employer bargaining association.
– added new rule that allows victims of violence to end their leases early without penalty to leave an unsafe home.
– froze post secondary tuition and fees for two years.
– passed the predatory lending act.
– Payday lending: Stopped 600 percent predatory interest rates on payday loans to prevent Albertans from spiraling into poverty. Alberta now has the country’s strongest protections and lowest interest rates for borrowers.
– Door-to-door sales: Prohibited misleading, aggressive sales tactics by banning door-to-door sales of energy products and services, including furnaces, hot water tanks, air conditioners, windows, energy audits and electricity and natural gas contracts.
– Electricity price cap: Introduced a price cap to make life more affordable and ensure electricity bills are fair.
– New home buyer protection: Introduced a builder licensing framework to protect consumers as well as the reputation of good builders.
– extended bars patio hours.
– $239 million for provincial park upgrades.
– spent $647 million fighting Ft Mac fire and getting residence extended EI.
– said no support to Trudeau carbon tax without coastal pipeline concessions.
– fixed the Klein power contracts and worked out a very good deal to phase out coal plants and convert them to NG. Costing us nothing. They get paid through a pay structure that uses the money they pay as emissions to buy them out.
– added grant program for non profits so they don’t pay carbon tax.
– protected the castle wilderness area by creating a provincial park and limiting off-highway vehicles (ohv) use.
– cut CEO pay, bonuses and perks at 23 Alberta corps, agencies and commissions saving $16 million a year. Under the new framework, Guy Kerr, CEO of the Workers’ Compensation Board, will earn $396,720 instead of $896,206.

NDP Government continues to demonstrate progress on its commitment to invest in Albertans. As of Nov. 30, 2016, there were 324 major capital projects ($5 million or more) underway in Alberta including:
– Parkdale: one of 40 Seniors and Housing projects
– 40 Affordable Supportive Living Initiative projects
– 23 road and bridge projects
– 22 major health facilities projects
– 9 post-secondary projects
– Calgary Cross Cancer Center
– New hospital in Edmonton
– Red Deer Courthouse
– Red Deer Interchange QE II
– $10 million for nutrition program for all schools.
– added 1296 daycare openings across the province at $25/day. Creating 119 jobs for this pilot project. Fulfilling another promise.
– NDP working alongside the Federal Liberals created the 24-month pilot program in Alberta which will stop the use of TFWS in 29 skilled positions in Alberta.
– passed Bill 202 a Wildrose Bill that allows people to sue for posting sex pics etc.
– passed off-highway vehicles (ohv) helmet law May 15th 2017.
– passed Bill 12 requires new home builders to be licensed and govt. posts t

Urick Hunt no one here, but you seems to buy into the idea that the NDP hasn’t done some good things – very rare for a government not to do something right. Even Hitler raised wages by 10.9%. But a 96 billion dollar deficit speaks for its self. I could continue, but you wouldn’t agree noatter what I said. And I DO NOT live in meme land. I have post secondary education in political theory. And I research obsessively. I will also add thar socially, I am ideologically opposed to them in many ways. You are being arrogant jerk. Stop mansplaining, please.

Nice conservative play that I’m making you the victim here. Laughable. You haven’t provided a single reason as to why they should’ve been stripped of their powers. So instead of providing factual evidence as to why they should be, you pull out a card saying I’m ‘mansplaining’. And if you knew anything about history, you’d know the Nazis weren’t actually socialist. You either went to a shitty school, or you’re ignorant to history.

This is about the NDP. Not that ballot box stuffing, 1950s shit show you want to be a part of. I see you liked a statement where someone said the NDP should’ve been stripped of their powers… Care to elaborate on why?